


heartbroken folly

by orphan_account



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>And while she thought of all these things, she never once realised that Spencer had been lying, too.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartbroken folly

Ali kept her eyes on the table, cupping the empty glass as if it was her only tether to life itself. She certainly played the part of being almost dead, what with her blank, glassy eyes and the stillness, or perhaps best described as rigidness, of her form. She felt numb, too, not in the sense that she couldn’t feel any of the numerous emotions battling against her, oh _no_ , but that when the cup was slowly pried from her grasp, she didn’t notice any difference. Her fingers stayed where they were, cupped around a phantom object that had left her, much like the numerous loves in her life.

One of them was Emily, and she loved her like stolen kisses in the darkness and cryptic love poems in her diary. She loved her sweetly, and meanly, and sometimes she still didn’t know where her lies ended and her true feelings began. Emily was hers, and only hers, to love, and to be loved in return. Emily was her mermaid, her home, and Emily would never drift from her side.

But she did, a few times. When Emily stopped being her doll - her darling little plaything - and started fighting back. Even now, the trust is still lost. They’ll hug and they’ll have the deepest conversations and they’ll laugh and they’ll cover up a murder together, but she can just smell the fear on her. She’s still scared sick of letting Ali hurt her again. So scared, in fact, that she won’t let Ali so much as try to be close to her like that ever again.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, when Emily fell in love again. Not to say Emily had only ever loved Alison, because that wasn’t true. She had loved Maya and she had loved Paige. Ali didn’t begrudge her these two loves because she _hadn’t been there_. It was all her own fault that Emily had turned to them. Even after they slept together, she didn’t blame Emily for staying with Paige, because at that time, she was still just toying with her, keeping things from her that she shouldn’t have.

But she hadn’t expected Emily to fall in love when she _was_ there and had been for more than five years since the day Emily ran into her arms, freed from a hell-like prison that had scared the shit out of both of them. It hadn’t crossed her mind for a second that they _wouldn’t_ end up together, even with all the things against them, because now Ali _wanted_ them to be a couple. She wanted to have Emily all to herself, and she wanted everyone and anyone to know of it.

Ten minutes prior, that fantasy had been shattered. Walking past the Brew after a day at Rosewood High, she had been tempted to drop in and pay Emily a visit, and she had. She wished she hadn’t, because sometimes you’re better off with a really good lie. One that doesn’t break your heart, that is. Ignorance is bliss until you’re not so ignorant anymore.

“Ali?” She looked up, breaking out of the trance she had been held in. Spencer. Of course, it was her. Ali had come to her house for God’s sake. She wasn’t sure why. She knew Spencer still didn’t like her after all the years. Some wounds don’t heal, and Spencer was smart. She had never really fallen into Ali’s trap - she followed her, sure, but hardly blindly. She questioned her every move, and sometimes Ali felt like screaming at her, punching Spencer in the face for making her feel so on edge, so scared of messing up just like Spencer expected her to.

But here she was. Maybe it was because Spencer was her favourite. After Emily, that was. Spencer was clever, beautiful, and Ali had found herself missing her terribly within the days that she was a runaway. Her sarcastic remarks, her determination, her folly and naive when it came to love, Ali missed her by her side. Spencer was her second choice, but a good one at that.

“Hey, Spence.” She smiled and stood up, holding Spencer’s gaze. In that moment, she wanted to hug Spencer. Cry into her arms, maybe. That, or she just wanted to cry.

“What are you doing here? We weren’t going to meet until eight, and it’s only five now,” Spencer reminded her slowly, and Ali liked the way Spencer seemed to be scrutinising her. Even now, Spencer was still just trying to figure her out, crack her puzzle.

The joke was on her, she didn’t have any kind of complex or mystery this time around.

Ali thought of how to tell her, but her mind came up blank, so she told her in the simplest way. “Emily kissed Sabrina.”

Spencer furrowed her eyebrows. Ali took delight in having confused her so. She had surely taken Spencer off guard. Good. Someone still cared about her. “So?” Spencer asked.

Ali smirked. “Oh, sweetie, don’t you get it? She _kissed_ her.” Emily kissed Sabrina like she loved her, and in front of everyone. It wasn’t even a passionate kiss, but that was the nail In the coffin for her. It was just a peck on the lips, but Emily was smiling, and she closed her eyes during the three-second deed. And Ali knew Emily, she knew her better than most, and she knew when she was in love. That was it.

It didn’t take Spencer long to catch on. Ali knew Spencer had always suspected that they once did a lot more than just _sleep_ in the same bed, but she didn’t know Spencer had already sussed out the darker side of her secret. Her feelings towards Emily - or perhaps the entire female species. She didn’t know herself, she couldn’t know, the lies were still catching up to her, so much so that she wasn’t on top of them anymore. She didn’t know the true nature of her feelings, only that she was so _desperately_ lonely.

That was why she had married Elliott. He was charming, clever and handsome. He was kind, witty and rich. Above all, he accepted her past ways and kept her warm at night. Funny was that she had never doubted his love for her, nor his intentions with her. For all the good being a lying, manipulative bitch did, knowing one when she saw them surprisingly wasn’t one.

Spencer didn’t say a word but instead pulled Ali in for a hug. Ali couldn’t remember the last time that they had done that. When she had gotten out of Welby, perhaps. Before that? She didn’t know. It was one of the reasons Ali figured Spencer despised her, but as she settled into the embrace, she knew that it wasn’t true. Spence was Spence, but she was still _her_ Spence.

“It’s okay to love her, Ali,” Spencer told her, a hand against her back, and Ali wished she had kept her silence. Tears filled her eyes, and she looked up to the ceiling to contain them, let them dry before falling. She betrayed herself, however, with just a sniffle, and Spencer pulled back.

Searching, Spencer’s eyes ran over Ali’s face. What she was searching for, Ali didn’t know. But then Spencer was cracking a smile, a sad one, and wiping away Ali’s traitor tear with her thumb. “You’re going to be okay,” she promised, and Ali wanted to laugh.

“How can you be so sure? You’re not okay, yourself.” She knew, of course, all about her heartbreak firstly with Toby, and then with Caleb. She knew about Hanna’s betrayal, too. They all did, but they wouldn’t speak about it. It didn’t concern them. Maybe that was the issue - they rarely helped each other if the request wasn’t voiced. Maybe it was so they could spend all the time fixing themselves.

Spencer’s face fell. “No,” she breathed, agreeing. “You’re right. I’m not. But we will be.” She looked at Ali for awhile, and Ali looked back, and finally the resulting silence felt too heavy and Spencer took a step back. “Wine?” she suggested, and Ali snorted.

“How about pouring me three glasses?”

 

* * *

 

There were many lies Ali told herself. Thousands she told when she was young, millions she told when she was a teen, and only a few when she was an adult. But as she leant forward, kindled the start of something that she knew would be short-lived, she prepared to tell the biggest, or perhaps the largest in quantity of, lies she had ever at one time told.

She whispered lies against Spencer’s soft lips, tangled her fingers into long, brown hair and fell back onto the couch with Spencer in toe. She caressed lies across Spencer’s creamy skin, spread her legs and kissed a trail downwards to her destination. She laid victim to only the most pleasurable lies on that same couch, and when it was all over, she wished she had never came to the Hastings household.

She laid next to a sleeping Spencer, tracing her cupid’s bow with gentle fingertips. The ache in her heart hadn’t gone, but she could handle it now. She felt calmer, more in control, the only good thing that had come out of the mess she had let herself fall into. How she would break it off in the morning, she didn’t know. How she could keep a secret this complex and interesting to herself, she didn’t want to know.

And while she thought of all these things, she never once realised that Spencer had been lying, too.


End file.
